I had my bag checked at the airport last night.

I think it might have been the first time my carry-on bag had been searched and it was a little unnerving. In part because I think of myself as one who obeys rules, packs proficiently and doesn’t make demands of airport staff, insist on upgrades or wait in lengthy lines to complain about waiting in lengthy lines like so many of my fellow travelers.

I simply do what I’m told. I place my sandals in the plastic container and watch them roll down the conveyor belt to be x-rayed. I guess they need to closely examine what type of animal droppings I may have accidently stepped on recently. Beyond that, there are a couple of straps and a rubber sole neither of which appear overly threatening or like a reasonable hiding place for drugs or explosives. Dog droppings on the other hand, a very real possibility.

It does however empower the security team as I stand barefooted sharing a dirty rug with perhaps a hundred thousand other bare soles. Stripping us down, humiliating us should set the tone for how one is meant to behave from the body scanner forward. There are rules in place for our safety and we’re going to start this procedure by literally knocking your socks off.

Why not the woman two people ahead of me in line with a double-strength zip-locked freezer bag full of enough jewellery to fill three suitcases? Why not question why she needed three laptops and a bucket of over 1000 nail polish bottles?

Why not the man with the size 16 running shoes who didn’t remove them until he was asked? And when he did remove them, he clearly had a size 8 foot?

Why not the woman with the 2L jug of Pepsi standing under the “No Liquids beyond this point” sign?

So the annoyed guard with the new pair of blue, rubber gloves rooted around in my bag, pulling things to the surface for all to see while I stood wondering if I could just reach into the container for my sandals so I could stop thinking about standing on this dirty carpet that must be saturated with animal feces.

She pulled out some granola bars, numerous tubes of chapstick, a book I knew I would never finish, holding it high in that, “you know you’re never going to finish this” way that can only be pulled off by someone wearing blue rubber gloves and of course, two diapers.

I guess when you’re returning from a fun weekend getaway with friends while the kids have been with Grandma and Grandpa, a thirty-six year old woman carting around a couple of diapers in her carry-on luggage is all they need to break out the rubber gloves.

Noted.